Ginobili has no complaint with flagrant foul

Having made a career snaking to the basket with his patented multi-step dribble, Manu Ginobili is no stranger to the hard foul.

Game 2 of the Western Conference finals found him in the unusual position of being forced to dish one out, grabbing Tony Allen’s left arm in mid-air to prevent what would have been a sure layup with less than a minute remaining in regulation. (Video below)

Catastrophic as the call might have been, Ginobili said he had no major problem with the call a day after the Spurs escaped with a 93-89 victory to take a 2-0 series lead.

“It was sort of a 2 on 1 or 1 against 0, and I tried to foul him,” he said. “I thought I had him well in the arm. It was not like a dangerous play or anything like that. But I guess it was.

“Yeah, I was surprised. I know I grabbed his arm. I kind of hold him…but I guess he fell awkwardly. When you have three refs watching a replay 1,000 times, I guess they made the right call.”

As you’d expect, Allen agreed as well.

“Most definitely,” he said. “He cannot pull me out of the air.”

Allen tumbled to the court on the foul, holding his head despite clearly not having made contact. It seemed to be an obvious attempt to accentuate what was already a hard spill — and not a particularly good one at that — but Ginobili shrugged that off as well.

“Even if you exaggerate the fall, when you watch it 10 times with three sets of eyes, it’s not a matter of exaggerating,” he said. “I guess I did too much of a hard foul, and that was a factor.”

Ginobili — usually as even-tempered as they come — wasn’t amused with a question about whether it was fitting that Allen made a meal of the foul given the Argentine’s reputation for exaggerating contact.